If your school is planning a fundraising campaign, kick off the project right with a school assembly. When the students become excited, the enthusiasm becomes contagious, especially if the students know their goal is to raise enough money for extra computers or cool playground equipment.
As your ideas begin to gel, keep in mind a few things:
Advertising Your School Fundraiser
If you’re not planning on using the internet, you’re bypassing a highly effective mode for getting the word out. Whether your school is using a company like Signature Fundraising, planning on selling pizza kits, cutlery or candy bars, the goal of any fundraiser is universal: to make as much money as possible in the precious little time your school has to do it. Between Twitter and Facebook, you can exponentially increase your sale base and reach an impressively massive audience.
1: Twitter:
Twitter is a venue where anyone can view your school or campaign’s website to gather information on your fundraiser’s products, contacts, etc. Twitter is super easy to use on smart phones; and an additional advantage of using Twitter is the ability of your supporters to “retweet” your fundraising information and get it shared to so many others.
2: Facebook:
Facebook should be used in addition to Twitter since it is so incredibly popular. Both sites should be established long before the fundraiser ever begins, however. Introduce these sites to the parents from the beginning of the school year so they can access school topics such as dress-code, weekly lunch menu, field trips and school programs. Give parents plenty of time to become familiar with school-related Twitter and Facebook; so by the time your fundraiser rolls around, parents will have become familiar with using both.
Other On-Line Considerations
Involve older elementary kids to be a part of the Twitter/Facebook advertising campaign and/or allow them to help design and set-up the fundraising website. It would not only increase their excitement, but it would be an opportunity for them expand their computer knowledge and keyboarding skills.
If at all possible, choose a fundraising supplier that offers on-line ordering. For friends and relatives who live out of town, placing an order involves a few clicks; and on-line orders can really expand your sales potential!
Become The Lead Dog
Know your competition! Become aware of other school fundraising campaigns in your area and try to avoid using the same dates and products. Better yet, if you are able to be the first campaign to emerge in your immediate area, you stand a much better chance of making a heftier profit than a campaign that becomes the second or third one to come around.
Call A Meeting
You’ll want to make sure all the large and small logistics are absolutely and clearly understood by everyone. A sampling of details would include:
1: Who collects the orders?
2: Who accompanies children to distribute merchandise?
3: What payment method will be used?—prepayment or post-pay? And for what it may be worth, if customers are given an option to not pay until the order arrives (post-pay), sales are substantially higher! The only drawback is the possibility of some payments not being collected.
4: When does the PTO need the in-coming money to pay the fundraising company?
Timing Is Everything
As stated, if you are the ‘only kid on the block’ with the first fundraiser of the school-year, you have a psychological edge. With that being said, schedule your sale so it spans three weekends and no less. Research reveals that approaching customers within the time frame of Thursday up to Monday has a dramatic impact on increased sales potential. There’s something about the ‘mid-week slump’ that diminishes potential sales.
Best of luck with your fundraising campaign!